Time to get out the grey and navy blue crayons, as we present the coffee-break conversation piece from 1961, The Executive Coloring Book, from way back in 1961. I say "way back", as the cubicle-dwelling corporate clowns haven't changed in the 50 years since it was made.

We may snigger at our smart-suited bespectacled salary-man, but sadly this still is the life-sucking lot of many thousands around the world. The willing slaves of capitalism, the cogs in the corporate machine, that keep the rest of us in a constant supply of "inter-fibrous friction-fasteners". So grab up those Crayola™ crayons, and get on with it, between slurping on your Starbucks™ coffee, and munching down on your Subway™ foot-long, and taking those ever so important calls on your Apple™, Samsung™, or [insert name here] smartphone.

Perhaps one of the weirdest "love songs" ever written and recorded. Written by song writing genius Jimmy Webb and bizarrely recorded by his mate, actor and infamous hell-raiser Richard Harris. Who couldn't sing! MacArthur Park, is a 7 minute long psychedelic orchestral trip, involving surreal metaphors about cakes being left out in the rain, and an instrumental middle section that sounds very similar to the cinema advertising music of Paul & Dean. No wonder most people who Jimmy presented it to rejected it. The song is epic, and in a bizarre twist, getting his drinking buddy Richard Harris to sing turned out to be a mad moment of musical wonderment. Thus creating a crazy classic, one hit wonder.

The musical collage of strange imagery, was written by Jimmy in 1967, after he broke-up with his girlfriend. Harris had asked Webb for a song to record, and after listening to a number of possible choices, he went for the last song Webb played him, MacArthur Park. Harris recorded the song in late 1967, backed by the infamous LA based session musicians, the Wrecking Crew. Despite making onto lists of the worst songs ever recorded, it was a hit. Peaking at No.4 in the UK charts and No.2 on the Billboard charts in the US. 

In the summer of 1978, disco diva Donna Summer, recorded a version of the song. The song reached No.1 on the Billboard charts, giving Jimmy Webb his only No.1 hit in the United States. In addition, Summer recorded an 18 minute long 12" version, called the MacArthur Park Suite, which stayed at No.1 in the charts for 5 weeks.

Yet another cult film that they through the "worst ever" moniker at. I mean come on, how many more movies can people call the worst ever? I can think of dozens of movies that Hollywood pump out to numb our minds, that are far worst than the movies that get called the "worst ever!" Anyway, back to Astro-Zombies...

Directed by the cult film-maker Ted V. Mikels, and starring John Carradine, is a great piece of late 60s schlock "take your brain out" horror sci-fi. So good in fact that Mikels waiting 34 years before doing a sequel, 2002's Mark of the Astro-Zombies, a third one in 2010, Astro Zombies M3: Cloned and a forth and final sequel in 2012 Astro Zombies M4: Invaders from Cyberspace. Though to be fair to Mikels, he'd lost his touch and the original Astro-Zombies of 1968 is by far the best. Now the title is somewhat misleading, as the creature in the movie are neither from space or is a zombie in the traditional sense. But a mad scientist does create a Frankenstein-esque monster from a dead body parts and a criminals brain, that is called Astroman. 

The Misfits did a tribute song to Astro Zombies on their legendary first full-length album Walk Among Us (1982). The opening lyrics of are:

With just a touch of my burning hand,
I send my astro zombies to rape the land
Prime directive, exterminate
The whole human race...

Often finding itself on lists of the "greatest book you've never read", Dancing Lessons For The Advanced In Age is a novel by Czechoslovak writer Bohumil Hrabal. Published in 1964, the novel is one long monologue, told by a 70 year old man to a group of sunbathing women. In one long single sentence. That's right, the whole novel is one single sentence!

Bohumil Hrabal is considered one of the greatest Czech authors, and Dancing Lessons, one of not only his masterpieces, but an influential masterpiece of Czech literature. It's long drawn out sentence is littered with references to Czech history, and culture, as the old man recants himself of a life-time of stories. While that might sound a bit dull, it isn't, as the old man litters his anecdotes with irreverent humour.  As the old man reveals stories about his life and love, juxtaposed and interweaving with the history of the country. 

Considered by toy collectors as the "holy grail" of monster related games, Monster Lab is a two players game produced by Ideal in 1964. The idea of the game was that players would twist the dial on the "monster control panel" at each end of the lab, in a attempt to keep "the monster" away from their end of the lab. The monster moves up and down the lab, until it reaches one end, when it raises its arms, lets out a growl and his mask falls off, revealing his hideous face beneath. Sounds and looks really cool. However apparently the game play really sucked, and the game was one more of chance than of skill.

Kids quickly got bored of playing the game, and Ideal soon ceased production. Hence why the game is so rare to find, and so collectible. So collectible in fact that mint condition versions of the game have sold for thousands of dollars at auction. The game sold originally for $16, and made its first appearance on the Magilla Gorilla TV show in 1964. It was also featured in the December issue of Popular Mechanics that year.

One Got Fat, has got to be one of the most nightmarishly creepy PSAs ever made. A testament to this is the number of times the film has been used in various music videos in recent years. The monkey masks on the kids are just so creepy, they have been a goldmine for cool music artists to accompany their tracks. And is often how most of the masses were introduced to this weird bicycle road safety film from the United States. The original PSA was irreverently narrated by prolific actor and voice artist Edward Everett Horton, with his catchphrase, "Right? Right!"

Actually not al of them end up dead, at the end of the film, three of the road accident victims are seen in a hospital. But still, why didn't they all just stop after the first kid was mown down? What's wrong with them? Never mind the picnic hungry Orville. Who likely died of obesity, and appeared in a later PSA about over-eating. No! Hang-on, this is America we are talking about. Where over-eating is lauded with a pride unseen in most parts of the world. I guess Orville's ten picnics was the equivalent of ordering a pancake stack at Denny's.

Anyway, One Got Fat goes down as one of the creepiest PSAs ever, apart from Dark And Lonely Water in the UK, but that's for another post. But One Got Fat certainly stands out as one of the trippiest PSAs, along with yesterday's post the awesomely weird Curious Alice from 1971. Thinking about it now, I should do a top ten list of weird PSAs, I have a whole bunch of them on a hard-drive somewhere. *Goes off to find that hard-drive*

I love Tor Johnson, and The Beast Of Yucca Flats gave him starring role as the central monster come Russian scientist, rather than as a side-kick monster, or as Lobo!Tor pulls out all the stops and acts for all his two-dimensional worth, as both beast and scientist. All those years of acting school pay off in this one movie. Just for the dying scene alone, as the little rabbit nuzzles the dying Tor, he grabs it "gently" in his huge hand just before drawing his final breath. It's a scene that brings a tear to the eye.

Now a bloke in a wet-suit with "seaweed" hanging off it, and a big inflatable bag on his head?! What's not to like? Apparently the actor playing the giant human jellyfish in Sting Of Death couldn't breath inside the sealed bag they put over his head. Go figure!!! So the staggering around he did wasn't acting, it was due to lack of oxygen. Added to this his army of paint filled freeze bags, floating menacingly on the water, and you have one of the most cut-price and brilliantly ridiculous movie monsters of all time, not just the 1960s.  

No wait! The monster from The Creeping Terror may have the edge of cut-price movie monsters. It's so bad, so impossible to make out and even describe... I chose to show an image of a stockinged pair of legs being eaten by the monster, than the actual monster itself. And that's why the monster from Creeping Terror made the list, not just because it's a walking or shuffling pile of old rags, carpets and vacuum tubing, but because it eats stockinged or bikini clad ladies. This monster has taste, even if it has no personal fashion sense. 

I was reading a post on a facebook Horror Movie group, and the question was asked, "What Horror Movie Came Out The Year You Were Born?" I didn't know the answer, so looked up horror movies made in 1969. There were quite a few Hammer Horrors, bad b-movies and bland movies that just didn't spark any interest. Then I came across this little beauty (or not as the case maybe).

Horrors of Malformed Men (江戸川乱歩全集 恐怖奇形人間) is a 1969 Japanese film in the ero guro (erotic-grotesque) subgenre of the production company Toei's style of Pink film. Directed by Teruo Ishii, the movie is considered a precursor to Toei's ventures into the "Pinky violent" style in the early 1970s. A genre of film, that I have posted about before, in the article Sukeban: Japanese Girl Bosses & Girl Gangs. So anyway as I say it sparked my interest, and discovered a weird and creepy little gem of Asian horror. Not to everyone's taste, and a horror movie with a foot in surrealist art-house cinema. The narrative (for what it is) is purposely illogical.

Somewhere between tortuous nightmare and that moment of dream-like semi-lucidity, just before you awake. There's some much going in terms of possible influences, maybe too much to untangle. It's been said that there is influence of the Japanese novelist, Edogawa Ranpo. Stylistically there's a hint of Ingmar Bergman, and a soupçon of German Expressionism, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. It does own as much to European cinema traditions as it does Japanese.  Well worth a watch for any fan of quality vintage Asian horror.

Not done a Mix-Tape Monday for quite a while now. In fact I posted a blog post related to this mix-tape all the way back in October, with Weird Music: Atomic Platters.  Anyway, better later than never and all that. Hope it was worth the wait. This is actually one of my personal favourites, and the quirkiest mix-tape so far. A mix of songs from all weird and wonderful genres of music, from extremely up-tempo happy tunes to... Actually they're all quite up-tempo considering the theme! All interspersed with Civil Defense PSAs and atomic attack radio warning messages. Giving it a bit of weird retro a 50s/60s radio station feel.